Something has bothered me for a while concerning our Navy and Air Force advancement. Its obvious (not to sound arrogant) we dont have an equal in air power or naval power. With so much advancement in missle technology in our military arnt we going to make our own naval force obsolete. What I mean is with cruise missles such as our own tomahawk and such which carry enormous payloads, are incredibly fast, extremely smart, and cheap to produce, isnt that going to make the carriers obsolete? Being isolated as we are away from all the battlefields, we are forced to take the fight to them. With our naval presence severly reduced due to this technology being developed here and in most other countries how do we continue to maintain our presence on the seas and still keep the saftey for those traveling about the ships. To my current knowledge not even the super aegis radar can pick it up in time and fire a salvo to protect itself. Now I know the answer to that is space based weaponry which we already have up there but are prohibited to use because of weapons treaties with Russia and China since we dont wanna look like we are starting another arms race. We know in order for us to maintain superpower status we must always have a strong navy. The reason why I asked Geist is because he seems to always know the answer to this kinda stuff but please everybody post cause honestly im clueless on how to solve it. Oh and btw sorry for the long rant /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif

XyZspineZyX

09-13-2003, 04:12 AM

Something has bothered me for a while concerning our Navy and Air Force advancement. Its obvious (not to sound arrogant) we dont have an equal in air power or naval power. With so much advancement in missle technology in our military arnt we going to make our own naval force obsolete. What I mean is with cruise missles such as our own tomahawk and such which carry enormous payloads, are incredibly fast, extremely smart, and cheap to produce, isnt that going to make the carriers obsolete? Being isolated as we are away from all the battlefields, we are forced to take the fight to them. With our naval presence severly reduced due to this technology being developed here and in most other countries how do we continue to maintain our presence on the seas and still keep the saftey for those traveling about the ships. To my current knowledge not even the super aegis radar can pick it up in time and fire a salvo to protect itself. Now I know the answer to that is space based weaponry which we already have up there but are prohibited to use because of weapons treaties with Russia and China since we dont wanna look like we are starting another arms race. We know in order for us to maintain superpower status we must always have a strong navy. The reason why I asked Geist is because he seems to always know the answer to this kinda stuff but please everybody post cause honestly im clueless on how to solve it. Oh and btw sorry for the long rant /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif

XyZspineZyX

09-13-2003, 05:14 AM

You got the actual situation inversed. The aircraft carries and the cruise missiles launched from ships will make the US Air Force obsolete! /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif

Hehe, just kidding of course. In reality, both the Navy and the Air Force have their mission.

The main problem with the Air Force is that to employ their tactical aircraft, they need friendly nations close to the theater of operations to base their aircraft from. For Naval air ops, all that is needed is an ocean or sea. Yes, the Air Force has the bombers, but these can't produce a high sortie rate because of long mission times. That is to say, by the time one bomber flies one mission, a fighter based close by might fly many more. We also have more fighters available than bombers. That is not to say that bombers are useless as they have a high payload and loiter times. And I don't see why you used the tomahawk as an example. As far as I know, the Navy is the only service that uses this missile. /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif

But now ignore everything I wrote above. The capabilities of specific services are completely irrelevant. The resources of all the services will always be combined. Both the Air Force and the Navy are tasked with air to ground operations. Somtimes, the Naval aircraft will be closer, and sometimes not. In addition to this, the air force will provide tanker elements for everyone, while the Navy might toss a few cruise missiles in. The AF seems to have usually been tasked with air superiority, while the Naval aircraft are only tasked with protecting the fleet. However, if the carriers are in a better position to provide air superiority, then they will be tasked to do so.

And finally, you never know what future wars may occur, it is always possible that Naval superiority will have to be gained through force. Therefore, we must keep the capability to do so.

XyZspineZyX

09-13-2003, 05:25 AM

Your right, my bad about that tomahawk with the Air Force thing. Its late and my brain doesnt like to work sometimes...err maybe all the time /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif I actually just had a recent discussion with an uncle of mine who was AF for 30 couple years and now works on missle defense. He was saying how with these new long range missles that are being invented and produced by countries, along with space based weaponry are really gonna screw our navy over. But I guess that is why the Navy and now the Marines are fighting for a piece of pie in space now. Im sure they have plenty of things up their sleeves to defend themselves. Actually I just read an article on a new Boeing missle defense plan that tested extremely well again long range cruise missles that will soon be implimented onboard navy ships. Tis still a good discussion point though. I think we must always have a powerful navy no matter what the cost. /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif

XyZspineZyX

09-13-2003, 05:29 AM

Anything that can make Naval air power obsolete can make the Air Force power obsolete as well. The two are not much different, except the former is more mobile, and the latter has some special capabilities (airlift, refueling...).

XyZspineZyX

09-13-2003, 05:31 AM

I guess I just got worried about the saftey of the carriers and the rest of the fleet. Never any harm in asking though /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif

XyZspineZyX

09-13-2003, 05:33 AM

I can rest easy now /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif Go flydude /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif

XyZspineZyX

09-13-2003, 06:28 AM

Unlike aircraft missles don't have any loiter time even though supposedly the Tactical Cruise missle will be capable of loitering the problem is where will it land if no target if found? Add in refueling and a missle comes nowhere close to staying in the air as long as an aircraft.

XyZspineZyX

09-13-2003, 04:05 PM

bacially youll need the navy because theres no other way of transporting such huge amounts of people and ordinace so effectively. ships also provider artillery fire bases and act as aircraft carriers etc etc. they are essential for logistics.

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